This invention relates to container closures and more particularly to a side dispensing pivoted top container closure.
Containers are normally fitted with closure caps which are frequently molded plastic cap members. Numerous examples exist of such molded closures equipped with dispensing tops including devices where a portion of the end piece or top of the dispensing cap is pivotable from a closed position to an open dispensing position. Such dispensing tops normally provide for contents dispensing in a direction substantially normal to the plane of the end face of the cap. Frequently, however, containers are provided with side dispensing openings, particularly where the container is provided for dry, shakeable ingredients such as, for example, grass seed, salt or the like. Often such side dispensing openings are formed as tear away portions of the container and such tear away portions may include both a portion of a sidewall of the container and a portion of a top wall of the container.
More recently, plastics material containers have been used for packaging such products and it is frequently not desirable to provide tear away portions for such containers, particularly since such a container, once opened, may not thereafter adequately protect the remaining contents from environmental conditions, such as moisture. Equipping such containers with shakeable dispenser caps having top openings requires, however, that the container be held in an inverted position which frequently can be awkward and can result in undesired dispensing patterns and difficulty in achieving proper flow control.
Chute type pivoted dispensers are also known to the art, such as the classic table salt container utilizing a small pivotable (generally metal) chute forming member attached to the top of the container which can be pivoted to define a pouring chute providing a opening between the top of the pivoted member and sidewalls which depend from the top and extend into the interior of the container. Such chute-like dispensers have generally not been adapted for shaking type dispensing nor have they been designed to extend directly to the periphery of the cap.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,144,180 to Phillipps et al discloses a dispensing closure having right angled sidewalls for the chute and a linear front opening, the opening being spaced radially inwardly from a periphery of the closure.
It would therefore be an improvement in the art to provide a hinged top, chute-like dispenser cap adopted for shaking dispensing, particularly for smaller dry or liquid materials.
It would be a further improvement in the art to provide a container cap particularly adopted for molded plastic containers for dry ingredients which cap is capable of side dispensing via a hinged chute-like top portion which opens adjacent the periphery of the cap.